


In The Woods

by DefinitelyNotScott



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Background Lore 1.0 Assumptions, Digital Art, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 03:30:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5441834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DefinitelyNotScott/pseuds/DefinitelyNotScott
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Little sketch of Spellthief Lux and Darius walking together that had the background get out of hand and turn into a picture.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Finished Picture

**Author's Note:**

> The other chapters just show the picture at various states of completion (kind of a step-by-step look at it but not very detailed). So if you're not interested in that kind of thing you can just look at the finished product in chapter one and skip the rest.


	2. Initial Sketch

I was trying out the ink tool in [GIMP](https://www.gimp.org/) and did this little sketch. 


	3. Color Highlights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Color highlights added to sketch: eyes, hair, cape, hood-embroidery.

Added a little color to the eyes, hair, cape, and hood-embroidery. Pretty sure I was still using the ink tool. You can see the strokes in Darius' hair and cape. 


	4. Initial Background Work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The background starts its bid for conquest.

This step is a little more complex.

First, I chose a color and used bucket-fill to fill in a new layer under the others.

Next I erased under Darius' pauldrons and cuisses, and the lines on his axehead to make it look shiny. I think I tried with their eyes too, but it looked weird or something. Sorry for being vague, it was a while ago.

Then I took the dodge/burn tool - burning in the outlines of the trees, bush-shapes, and ground-textures. Note that I used different brush sizes for variation, etc. Useful tip it took me a while to notice on my own (rolls eyes at self) - for long strokes it won't darken where it overlaps. Mostly I didn't bother avoiding dark spots from overlapping here because that gave additional depth and texture. Also, when I started, I was going for "quick and dirty background," soooooo.... You can see I didn't use the dodge option much, just for the tree rings and fungus.


	5. Intermediate Background Additions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Start filling in the empty spaces left after the initial background work.

Here I set the fuzzy-select to very sensitive and selected the big empty patches (using "Add to current selection" so that it was all the same selection). Then I copies the empty patches and pasted them into a new layer. You don't have to do it that way, but that's how I roll. I like everything nice and separate so that if I absolutely ruin something it's usually only one layer of many. I can always merge down later, right?

Then I burned in some more undergrowth, trying for different shapes, angles, and textures this time. Other brush types/sizes can help with this.


	6. Even More Background

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes. More vegetation, how did you guess?

I may have used color-select instead of fuzzy-select? Then I copy-pasted to a new layer again and added more vegetation, making sure to make it darker since it was deeper in the forest. You can darken the smaller spaces with a few swipes of the burn tool before adding details. You can kind of see where I started to run out of patience on the left where it's just a bunch of straight lines at different angles. 


	7. Deepening Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Transparent layers add depth.

Added a layer of black and set the layer transparency to... 24.7? Why is this not a round number, or at least a whole number? Whatever. That's what it's set to. Erased the black from over Darius and Lux.

Added another layer of black set to transparency of 20. (That's more like it.) Erased the black over the same area (probably used select on the other layer and just cut it out), then also erased over the near forest (the part on the left) and the ground on the right. This left the two furthest original trees and the brush a little darker.


	8. Tree Gremlin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adding the tree Gremlin

Add a little black lump in the recesses of the hole in the tree. Pretty sure I used airbrush to make the glowy red eyes. All done! 


End file.
